Massaged Kale Salad, Carrots and Arame, and Pepper Rice

I have always considered kale to be a horribly ill flavored and ill tempered vegetable.  I've found it bitter and chewy, and it loves to roll around in the dirt and come home filthy.  However, Sarah has discovered that if you douse the stuff in salt and give it a good rub then it just melts.  It's whole rough and spiky exterior falls away and leaves behind a tender and pleasant salad green.  Flavored with a little bit of lemon juice and sesame seed oil and it's practically scarfable.

Lay the kale salad over a bed of rice heavily seasoned with pepper and top with stir fried carrots and Arame (seaweed) and you end up with a hardy vegan meal.

Massaged Kale Salad

1 Bunch Kale

About 1 Tbs. of Salt

Olive Oil

Sesame Seed Oil

Salt & Pepper

Lemon Juice/Mirin/Rice Wine Vinegar

Red Pepper Flakes

Sesame Seeds

Wash the kale thoroughly to get off all the dirt and grit.  Put the kale in a large bowl and douse liberally with salt.  Rub it between your hands and work it with your fingers until it begins to soften and release water.  You're going to want to rinse it after it is soft to get all the salt off so you can start with a "fresh" green.

Flavor with olive oil, sesame seed oil, salt and pepper, some kind of acid (lemon juice, mirin, rice wine vinegar, or a little of all three), red pepper flakes if you like it spicy, and a good helping of sesame seeds.  This is all by taste of course so if you want to mix it up and make it taste like something else, go for it.

Deborah Madison's cookbook Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone introduced Sarah and I to a dish humbly labeled "|Carrots and Hijiki".  It is just a simple stir fry of carrots and sea weed flavored with ginger and sesame seed oil.  It was great the first time we had it.  When we tried to make it the second time we ran into a bit of a problem: when we had first bought the Hijiki at our local grocery store the cost per ounce was about two dollars (pretty expensive already, I know) but when we went back the second time we didn't notice that the price had been increased to $10/oz.!  Bah!  We tried to get half a pound of the stuff.

It wasn't until we got to the register and the cashier rung the seaweed in at a total of $80 that we noticed.  It catches your eye when your grocery balance jumps from $20 to $100 after having rung up a single item.   Needless to say we were a bit put out.  Luckily there is a different type of seaweek called Arame that works just as well.  The flavor isn't as smoky as the Hijiki, but for the price I think it's not something to get worked up over.

Carrots & Arame

1 Cup Arame or Hijiki

1 Tbs. Olive Oil

2 Julienned Carrots

2 tsp. freshly diced Ginger

1 Tbs. Soy Sauce

1 tsp. Sesame Seed Oil

Salt & Pepper to taste

Soak the Arame in cold water for about 5 minutes until soft.  Drain.  If using Hijiki soak the seaweed in boiling water for about the same amount of time, until soft, and drain.

Stir fry the carrots in oil for about 2 minutes.  Add the ginger and stir fry for a minute more.  Add the seaweed along with the soy sauce and stir fry until the soy sauce has been cooked off.  Take off the heat and season with sesame seed oil, salt, and pepper.

Lay down a bed of rice seasoned well with black pepper.  Stack the kale salad on top of the rice and top it all with some of the carrot and sea weed stir fry.